stretched out under an awning on the deck of the ibis, nicklansing looked up for a moment at the vanishing cliffs of maltaand then plunged again into his book.
he had had nearly three weeks of drug-taking on the ibis. thedrugs he had absorbed were of two kinds: visions of fleeinglandscapes, looming up from the blue sea to vanish into itagain, and visions of study absorbed from the volumes piled upday and night at his elbow. for the first time in months he wasin reach of a real library, just the kind of scholarly yetmiscellaneous library, that his restless and impatient spiritcraved. he was aware that the books he read, like the fugitivescenes on which he gazed, were merely a form of anesthetic: heswallowed them with the careless greed of the sufferer who seeksonly to still pain and deaden memory. but they were beginningto produce in him a moral languor that was not disagreeable,that, indeed, compared with the fierce pain of the first days,was almost pleasurable. it was exactly the kind of drug that heneeded.
there is probably no point on which the average man has moredefinite views than on the uselessness of writing a letter thatis hard to write. in the line he had sent to susy from genoanick had told her that she would hear from him again in a fewdays; but when the few days had passed, and he began to considersetting himself to the task, he found fifty reasons forpostponing it.
had there been any practical questions to write about it wouldhave been different; he could not have borne for twenty-fourhours the idea that she was in uncertainty as to money. butthat had all been settled long ago. from the first she had hadthe administering of their modest fortune. on their marriagenick's own meagre income, paid in, none too regularly, by theagent who had managed for years the dwindling family properties,had been transferred to her: it was the only wedding present hecould make. and the wedding cheques had of course all beendeposited in her name. there were therefore no "business"reasons for communicating with her; and when it came to reasonsof another order the mere thought of them benumbed him.
for the first few days he reproached himself for his inertia;then he began to seek reasons for justifying it. after all, forboth their sakes a waiting policy might be the wisest he couldpursue. he had left susy because he could not tolerate theconditions on which he had discovered their life together to bebased; and he had told her so. what more was there to say?
nothing was changed in their respective situations; if they cametogether it could be only to resume the same life; and that, asthe days went by, seemed to him more and more impossible. hehad not yet reached the point of facing a definite separation;but whenever his thoughts travelled back over their past life herecoiled from any attempt to return to it. as long as thisstate of mind continued there seemed nothing to add to theletter he had already written, except indeed the statement thathe was cruising with the hickses. and he saw no pressing reasonfor communicating that.
to the hickses he had given no hint of his situation. whencoral hicks, a fortnight earlier, had picked him up in thebroiling streets of genoa, and carried him off to the ibis, hehad thought only of a cool dinner and perhaps a moonlight sail.
then, in reply to their friendly urging, he had confessed thathe had not been well--had indeed gone off hurriedly for a fewdays' change of air--and that left him without defence againstthe immediate proposal that he should take his change of air onthe ibis. they were just off to corsica and sardinia, and fromthere to sicily: he could rejoin the railway at naples, and beback at venice in ten days.
ten days of respite--the temptation was irresistible. and hereally liked the kind uncomplicated hickses. a wholesomehonesty and simplicity breathed through all their opulence, asif the rich trappings of their present life still exhaled thefragrance of their native prairies. the mere fact of being withsuch people was like a purifying bath. when the yacht touchedat naples he agreed since they were so awfully kind--to go on tosicily. and when the chief steward, going ashore at naples forthe last time before they got up steam, said: "any letters forthe post, sir?" he answered, as he had answered at each previoushalt: "no, thank you: none."now they were heading for rhodes and crete--crete, where he hadnever been, where he had so often longed to go. in spite of thelateness of the season the weather was still miraculously fine:
the short waves danced ahead under a sky without a cloud, andthe strong bows of the ibis hardly swayed as she flew forwardover the flying crests.
only his hosts and their daughter were on the yacht-of coursewith eldorada tooker and mr. beck in attendance. an eminentarchaeologist, who was to have joined them at naples, hadtelegraphed an excuse at the last moment; and nick noticed that,while mrs. hicks was perpetually apologizing for the great man'sabsence, coral merely smiled and said nothing.
as a matter of fact, mr. and mrs. hicks were never as pleasantas when one had them to one's self. in company, mr. hicks ranthe risk of appearing over-hospitable, and mrs. hicks confuseddates and names in the desire to embrace all culture in herconversation. but alone with nick, their old travelling-companion, they shone out in their native simplicity, and mr.
hicks talked soundly of investments, and mrs. hicks recalled herearly married days in apex city, when, on being brought home toher new house in aeschylus avenue, her first thought had been:
"how on earth shall i get all those windows washed?"the loss of mr. buttles had been as serious to them as nick hadsupposed: mr. beck could never hope to replace him. apart fromhis mysterious gift of languages, and his almost superhumanfaculty for knowing how to address letters to eminent people,and in what terms to conclude them, he had a smattering ofarchaeology and general culture on which mrs. hicks had learnedto depend--her own memory being, alas, so inadequate to therange of her interests.
her daughter might perhaps have helped her; but it was not misshicks's way to mother her parents. she was exceedingly kind tothem, but left them, as it were, to bring themselves up as bestthey could, while she pursued her own course of self-development. a sombre zeal for knowledge filled the mind ofthis strange girl: she appeared interested only in freshopportunities of adding to her store of facts. they wereilluminated by little imagination and less poetry; but,carefully catalogued and neatly sorted in her large cool brain,they were always as accessible as the volumes in an up-to-datepublic library.
to nick there was something reposeful in this lucid intellectualcuriosity. he wanted above all things to get away fromsentiment, from seduction, from the moods and impulses andflashing contradictions that were susy. susy was not a greatreader: her store of facts was small, and she had grown upamong people who dreaded ideas as much as if they had been acontagious disease. but, in the early days especially, whennick had put a book in her hand, or read a poem to her, herswift intelligence had instantly shed a new light on thesubject, and, penetrating to its depths, had extracted from themwhatever belonged to her. what a pity that this exquisiteinsight, this intuitive discrimination, should for the most parthave been spent upon reading the thoughts of vulgar people, andextracting a profit from them--should have been wasted, sinceher childhood, on all the hideous intricacies of "managing"!
and visible beauty--how she cared for that too! he had notguessed it, or rather he had not been sure of it, till the daywhen, on their way through paris, he had taken her to thelouvre, and they had stood before the little crucifixion ofmantegna. he had not been looking at the picture, or watchingto see what impression it produced on susy. his own momentarymood was for correggio and fragonard, the laughter of the musiclesson and the bold pagan joys of the antiope; and then he hadmissed her from his side, and when he came to where she stood,forgetting him, forgetting everything, had seen the glare ofthat tragic sky in her face, her trembling lip, the tears on herlashes. that was susy ....
closing his book he stole a glance at coral hicks's profile,thrown back against the cushions of the deck-chair at his side.
there was something harsh and bracing in her blunt primitivebuild, in the projection of the black eyebrows that nearly metover her thick straight nose, and the faint barely visible blackdown on her upper lip. some miracle of will-power, combinedwith all the artifices that wealth can buy, had turned the fatsallow girl he remembered into this commanding young woman,almost handsome at times indisputably handsome--in her bigauthoritative way. watching the arrogant lines of her profileagainst the blue sea, he remembered, with a thrill that wassweet to his vanity, how twice--under the dome of the scalzi andin the streets of genoa--he had seen those same lines soften athis approach, turn womanly, pleading and almost humble. thatwas coral ....
suddenly she said, without turning toward him: "you've had noletters since you've been on board."he looked at her, surprised. "no--thank the lord!" he laughed.
"and you haven't written one either," she continued in her hardstatistical tone.
"no," he again agreed, with the same laugh.
"that means that you really are free--""free?"he saw the cheek nearest him redden. "really off on a holiday,i mean; not tied down." after a pause he rejoined: "no, i'mnot particularly tied down.""and your book?""oh, my book--" he stopped and considered. he had thrust thepageant of alexander into his handbag on the night of his bightfrom venice; but since then he had never looked at it. too manymemories and illusions were pressed between its pages; and heknew just at what page he had felt ellie vanderlyn bending overhim from behind, caught a whiff of her scent, and heard herbreathless "i had to thank you!""my book's hung up," he said impatiently, annoyed with misshicks's lack of tact. there was a girl who never put outfeelers ....
"yes; i thought it was," she went on quietly, and he gave her astartled glance. what the devil else did she think, hewondered? he had never supposed her capable of getting farenough out of her own thick carapace of self-sufficiency topenetrate into any one else's feelings.
"the truth is," he continued, embarrassed, "i suppose i dug awayat it rather too continuously; that's probably why i felt theneed of a change. you see i'm only a beginner."she still continued her relentless questioning. "but later--you'll go on with it, of course?""oh, i don't know." he paused, glanced down the glitteringdeck, and then out across the glittering water. "i've beendreaming dreams, you see. i rather think i shall have to dropthe book altogether, and try to look out for a job that willpay. to indulge in my kind of literature one must first have anassured income."he was instantly annoyed with himself for having spoken.
hitherto in his relations with the hickses he had carefullyavoided the least allusion that might make him feel the heavyhand of their beneficence. but the idle procrastinating weekshad weakened him and he had yielded to the need of putting intowords his vague intentions. to do so would perhaps help to makethem more definite.
to his relief miss hicks made no immediate reply; and when shespoke it was in a softer voice and with an unwonted hesitation.
"it seems a shame that with gifts like yours you shouldn't findsome kind of employment that would leave you leisure enough todo your real work ...."he shrugged ironically. "yes--there are a goodish number of ushunting for that particular kind of employment."her tone became more business-like. "i know it's hard tofind--almost impossible. but would you take it, i wonder, if itwere offered to you--?"she turned her head slightly, and their eyes met. for aninstant blank terror loomed upon him; but before he had time toface it she continued, in the same untroubled voice: "mr.
buttles's place, i mean. my parents must absolutely have someone they can count on. you know what an easy place it is ....
i think you would find the salary satisfactory."nick drew a deep breath of relief. for a moment her eyes hadlooked as they had in the scalzi--and he liked the girl too muchnot to shrink from reawakening that look. but mr. buttles'splace: why not?
"poor buttles!" he murmured, to gain time.
"oh," she said, "you won't find the same reasons as he did forthrowing up the job. he was the martyr of his artisticconvictions."he glanced at her sideways, wondering. after all she did notknow of his meeting with mr. buttles in genoa, nor of thelatter's confidences; perhaps she did not even know of mr.
buttles's hopeless passion. at any rate her face remained calm.
"why not consider it--at least just for a few months? tillafter our expedition to mesopotamia?" she pressed on, a littlebreathlessly.
"you're awfully kind: but i don't know--"she stood up with one of her abrupt movements. "you needn't,all at once. take time think it over. father wanted me to askyou," she appended.
he felt the inadequacy of his response. "it tempts me awfully,of course. but i must wait, at any rate--wait for letters. thefact is i shall have to wire from rhodes to have them sent. ihad chucked everything, even letters, for a few weeks.""ah, you are tired," she murmured, giving him a last downwardglance as she turned away.
>from rhodes nick lansing telegraphed to his paris bank to sendhis letters to candia; but when the ibis reached candia, and themail was brought on board, the thick envelope handed to himcontained no letter from susy.
why should it, since he had not yet written to her?
he had not written, no: but in sending his address to the bankhe knew he had given her the opportunity of reaching him if shewished to. and she had made no sign.
late that afternoon, when they returned to the yacht from theirfirst expedition, a packet of newspapers lay on the deck-housetable. nick picked up one of the london journals, and his eyeran absently down the list of social events.
he read:
"among the visitors expected next week at ruan castle (let forthe season to mr. frederick j. gillow of new york) are princealtineri of rome, the earl of altringham and mrs. nicholaslansing, who arrived in london last week from paris. "nick threwdown the paper. it was just a month since he had left thepalazzo vanderlyn and flung himself into the night express formilan. a whole month--and susy had not written. only a month--and susy and strefford were already together!
